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A Day in the Life of Talia Sneeko: Avant Gardens Stromling
=A Mythran Christmas= Talia fondled the brightly painted ornament hanging from one of the lower branches of her Christmas tree. It was shaped as a candy cane, pure white and stripes of red. Attached to it was the story of how the candy cane was first made. Her neighbor, Cecil, had given it to her. Looking up, she sighed contently. Her tree was a little scanty, but homely at the same time. She loved it that way. Her alarm clock buzzed wildly from the other room; she had risen earlier than usual, unable to sleep from excitement. Treading through the thick, crimson carpet she rushed to quiet it before slipping into some more warm clothes and hopping out the door into the apartment hallway. Taking two steps at a time, she almost bumped into another of her neighbors shuffling out of her own apartment while balancing an impressive stack of wrapped gifts. Giggling their apologies, they brushed down the stairs together. Talia opened the door for her companion, and followed her out. She loved her street in the morning. Bright strings of lights were scattered across buildings, a few on lawns too. Already the Mythran city was bustling with merry activity. The newspaper boy was puffing up furiously on his bicycle, tossing a newspaper at every door, and a large bundle of them at Talia's apartment building. They landed next to her with a thump, impressing a hole in the layer of fluffy snow. The mail mythran came humming up on his little electric scooter (which was very heavily belabored with Christmas letters and late packages). Using an invention he had made himself (he prided in his tinkerings), he pulled a small lever and the mail for the house he was at was flung at the mailbox. It landed more or less next to it. As he passed by Talia, he got off politely and handed her three packages. "'Ere you go, Miss Talia," he said in his deep voice, taking off his hat. "This one is for Mr. Cecil, this one's for Miss Riina, and this one is for you Ma'am." "Really?" Talia said in surprise. She hadn't been expecting another present- everyone in her apartment complex had already given her one. "What a surprise! Thank you." He nodded, wished her a good day, and continued on with his buzzing scooter armed with the flinging device. Talia rushed back in, placing the packages at the appropriate doorsteps before placing her own under her tree. Carrying some sugar cookies and a glass of milk back out of the kitchenette with a pleasant spring in her step, she plopped down next to her presents and paused. This was her first Christmas... did she open the presents now or later? As she pondered the customs of gift giving she nibbled on a cookie. Thunk thunk thunk! A pounding on the door startled her. Brushing crumbs off her thick blue sweater, she cleared her throat and called, "Come in!" Riina, who lived just downstairs, popped her head in. "Hiya, Tilly," she giggled, using the nickname she had bestowed upon Talia when they met, "I thought maybe you'd like some company, and I wanted some anyways, so do'yah mind if I join in? Mmm, cookies!" She sprang in, closing the door without a second glance as she sat next to Talia. Talia smiled and, feeling a little embarrassed, asked her friend for some insight on the present dilemma. Of course, there was only one answer. "Open them now, openopenopenthem!!!!" Riina squealed, shoving the bright boxes at her. Talia did. Wrapping paper covered the room with abandon as she uncovered various things, from a mini microwave to a new top to a bright pink overstuffed dog (that was from Riina). Then they read Luke 2: 4-20 from a Bible. It was over all too quickly. Before she knew it, her excited friend was tossing her a scarf as she pulled her down the stairs, both with grins from ear to ear. "We're going caroling now!" they whooped, cascading out the building. Dashing up to the curb, Riina whipped a small convertible out of her backpack, changing the color scheme from blue to red and blue as it built itself in front of them. After pulling the top up, they drove for a few minutes before parking next to a small house. A Mythran and his wife were handing out songbooks to a group of warmly dressed Mythrans. Riina put the car away as Talia got a songbook for them to share. The Mythran began calling out directions. "Okay, has everyone got one of these books?! Yes?! Wonderful! We'll walk to the end of this street, to the right, down that one, another right, halfway then through the cul-de-sac, back along the third street, then past the avenue onto the main street which we follow back here!" A younger fellow piped up jokingly, "As long as you remember all that, I'll follow!" Laughter erupted, and the group of twelve or so started down the street. Someone pulled out a guitar and started up a merry chorus of "O Holy Night". Another produced a small flute and joined in. Sometimes a family would come out of their house and join the singing jubilee from their door until they had passed. Slowly making their way on the sidewalk, the carolers all sang with gusto. Talia breathed a deep breath of cool winter air, watching the foggy form of her outbreath drift up, up, up into the sky. Clouds were blanketing the city in a cold, but well meaning greeting. Stars could be seen peering down from small rents in the clouds, despite the time, ever present as always to the small chunk the Mythrans had reestablished on. Through one hole, the comet Frostivus could be seen as it continued it's jolly annual passing. It began to snow. Talia caught a snowflake on her tongue, laughing out loud for joy. She was here, among the Mythrans, counted as brethren, surrounded by Christmas spirit, celebrating Jesus coming as a small, helpless child, as snow fell gently around. It was magical. =Fun/Fake Chapters= 1- Hamburgers Galore!!! Talia Sneeko walked around in Avant Gardens. It was a pleasant day; the breeze was warm, the sky was clear. But Talia wasn't paying attention to any of that. She was more interested in the tray of hamburgers she had just found. It was pretty much your average burger tray, with six burgers neatly lined up in two little rows. Talia was quite pleased with her find, and promptly decided that she was going to eat one of them. "Oooh! This one has mustard!" she exclaimed, picking it up. Unfortunately, doing such caused it to become infected, but she didn't catch on too quick. "Hmm... It’s starting to smoke this strange purple color... it must be going bad." She tossed it behind her, not noticing that it hit a mech square on. "BZZZ!!! Yellow conclave!!! Yellow conclave!!" She picked up another one, but it started smoking as well. "Oh!" she realized, "I'm infecting them... hmm... I guess it can't taste too bad..." She paused a moment to look at the now purple hamburger, then took a nice, big bite out of it. "Eeww!!! Yuck!!" she complained, spitting it out. "That tasted awful! Hmm... So how can I eat them without infecting them?" she muttered. She tossed what was left of the second hamburger behind her. ---- A newbie crept up on the unsuspecting stromling. "Almost there..." he whispered, only to be walloped in the face with a half- infected hamburger. (Talia had a bad habit of throwing things behind her without looking where they went.) He started to scream, "AH! They have ammo!!!" and retreated at a remarkable pace. ---- Talia stared at the four remaining burgers, upset and debating on how she could eat them. They looked so good, so juicy... "Aha! I've got it," she said confidently, "I'll use my feet!" She sat down (and stuck her tongue out a little too), trying to manipulate it into her mouth. However, it soon started to get infected as well. Talia sighed. "Fail." She tossed the infected one over her shoulder- it landed right on top of a budding flower. Splat! Now only three were left. "Hmm. Maybe this will work." Grabbing a stick, she pushed one off the tray. It was rather un-orderly now, but so long as she could eat it, Talia didn't care. Putting the stick down, she opened her mouth as wide as possible, only to free-fall right on top of the poor hamburger. She had hoped that her mouth would land right on top of it, thus inserting it into her mouth. Instead, she missed her mark and discovered what grass and dirt taste like. Two left. They looked so good... She threw the fourth, half-destroyed and now half infected burger behind her. It landed on a curious Doberman puppy- "Arrrooo!!!" Time for plan E to be put into motion. Finding a rock, she placed the stick on top of it. Five minutes later: "There! I finally got it into position!" she exclaimed. The rock and stick had been set up in a sort of seesaw position, and the burger was on one end. Talia raised her foot, and then brought it down upon the other side, her mouth wide in anticipation. It flew all right. Straight over her head and next to the Sentinel Base Camp guards. It landed with an audible *Splat* and stained the grass with sauce, attracting the attention of all the guards. "OPEN FIRE!!!" one yelled at the top of his lungs. They proceeded to do so. Just one tempting, perfect hamburger left. After a few moments of refection, Talia realized the all too evident answer. "Hey, there's an idea!" She picked up the tray and tilted it, letting the last burger (which was smaller than it's not-so-lucky comrades) slid into her mouth. Success! Ah, the sweet taste of victory! So juicy, so flavorful, so... pickles?! Talia spit it out, overcome with horror. "Pickles?! How could those burger-making minifigures do such a thing?! What a scam!" She stormed off in search of a more enjoyable activity. 2- ThE eViL lAir!!!! Talia looked proudly at the evil lair she had recently come into possession of. (In other words, she had driven out all of the Stromlings inside the broken house near Epsilon and declared it her own.) Walking around inside, she decided that it was rather dull. It needed to be spruced up, like with decorations or something! But what type of decorations does a Stromling put in an evil lair exactly? "Flowers? No, too pretty. Pictures? No, too civilized," Talia mused. "Maelstrom orb? No, too big. A statue of the Darkitect? Now that might be nice... -wait a minute, where would I find something like that? Scratch that idea. Uh... light fixtures? No, there is no roof. "......... "I've got it!" Talia ran to the nearest recruit, grabbed his backpack, took out a few models and handed it back. The recruit watched her run away with his models, and, mistaking her for a Paradox, thought, "Man, those Paradox figs just keep getting weirder and weirder..." Looking at the models she had stole- er, planned to borrow for a very long time, she pulled out a nice looking coffee table. "This will look great once I'm through with it," she thought. "Hey you, Mech! Come over here and break this table in half for me!" she yelled at a nearby Stromling Mech. It strode over, making funny sounds. "//Stromling= asking Unit 2-11 to be Black Bisector? // Unit 2-11= accept // Unit2-11= make Stromling's black sphere purple parallel," it buzzed. "Um... is that a yes?" Unit 2-11 shot the middle of the table with its laser, cracking it in the middle and causing it to slump inward with fresh wood chips littering the area. "//Unit 2-11= status report= orange sphere, no green perpendicular encountered. //Stromling= enjoy." it said with a beep and a clank as it clunked away. After a while, Talia finally got the broken table into her evil lair. "Wonderful! Broken furniture is just what this place needed!" she exclaimed happily. "But it's just a little dirty... I'll have to fix that." She scooped up an armful of dirt from outside and brought it in, cramming some in every obscure corner she could find. Throwing the rest on the floor and table, she stepped back to admire her work. "Perfect," she said, greatly pleased with her work. Just then, a Spiderling wearing a little black bowler hat scuttled up to her and said, "Sorry Ma'am! You've been evicted!" "WHAT?! Aww..." 3- Interviews! “So, my name is Talia, and I’m going to be interviewing you today,” Talia told the Horseman Invader on Crux Prime. (Don’t ask how she got there. Just don’t.) “Thanks again for saving me from that guy before, he had some nasty looking weapons. Anyways, on with the interview. Tell me a little about yourself.” The rider smiled- or would of if he had a mouth-, obviously very happy that he was getting interviewed. “Well, I’m a Dark Ronin, I ride this skeleton horse, and I carry a lance. I serve the Darkitect and… I like pizza,” he said slowly, “That’s about it. Oh, and my favorite color is purple.” Talia wrote this all down in a notebook she had stol- er, found. Then she straitened up very sharply, glancing at the Horseman out of the corner of her eye. “Hmmm. That’s very good and all… but I’m going to ask you a question-“ Here she turned around with her arms folded, gazing intently into the Maelstrom Vortex. “A largely unanswered question. One that the public wants to know,” she continued in a very ominous voice. “I want complete honesty. Only the truth will do! Now…” She turned back around quickly, leaning with both arms on the desk and leaning forward with her eyes narrowed to slits- Wait, what desk? “Whoa!, OOF!” she exclaimed, falling face first onto the hard rocks of Aura Mar, quite forgetting the lack of furniture to lean on. She picked herself up quickly, glaring contemptuously at the snickering Horseman, as if her accidental blunder was his entire fault. Immediately resuming her previous, mysterious air, she finally posed her question: “Why do Horsemen run off of cliffs so much?” The answer was simpler than she expected. “The horses get spooked.” “…. Ah. Fascinating. Thank you for your time today.” “No problem. Hey, is that Vargas the Tormented?!? I have to get his autograph!!” ---- Ten minutes and one autograph later: “So, my name is Talia Sneeko, and I was wondering if you would be interested in an interview, preferably telling me about yourself and what you do,” she said to a Stromling Mech Invader nearby, flipping to a page that didn’t have scribbles that somehow passed for a signature on it. The Mech turned to her, saying, “//1nt3rv13w=1nccur3 wh1t3 accut3 1f n0t pat1capat3d 1n?” Talia blinked un-surely. “Um… suuuuure… why not?…” “//Un1t 12-A= Part1c1pate//Un1t 12-A= Black Sph3r3= 5ma5h m1n1f1gur35= 0rang3 Sph3r3 up t0 dat3// Un1t 12-A= 53rv3 Dark1t3ct//” “Ooookay, thanks, that helped me so much… I should get going now.” She walked off, still trying to puzzle out what Unit 12-A had been trying to tell her. Later she almost got the courage to go interview Butterscorch herself, but the sight of a all rank three team heading her way was more than enough to give up interviews for today and return to Avant Gardens.